Milk Truck Grilled Cheese (at Smorgasbar)

I’d like to think the guys behind Smorgasburg in Brooklyn realized that their Number One fan works weekends and needed her food truck fix during the weekdays. In reality, the Flea opened daily near South Street Seaport in an effort to revitalize the area following the damage from Hurricane Sandy. Smorgasbar is open daily from 11am to 10pm with a shipping crate converted into a full bar, serving drinks to patrons in the area.

One of the vendors I have been dying to try since I began venturing to Smorgasburg last year is Milk Truck Grilled Cheese. The line was always far too long for my grumbling stomach and I never had the opportunity to try one of their amazing grilled cheese sandwiches.

Luckily, Milk Truck found a new home at Smorgasbar with significantly shorter line during the middle of the day. Their grilled cheese options are significantly simpler than many other funky shops that think more is better. Instead, Milk uses high quality cheese, bread and one unique topping to compliment the key ingredients.

On my first trip, I went for one of the more complex sandwiches, the Three Cheese Grilled Cheese.

Splitting the two halves apart causes the oozing, gooey cheese to separate into stringy pieces, which is the purest sign of a perfectly melted sandwich. When you bite inside the sandwich, the crunch of the delicious rosemary pullman contrasts the creamy cheese. The combination of cheddar, gruyere and blue cheese gives off a smokey, stinky, and slightly tangy flavor. The blue cheese melts into the sandwich, creating a coating on the bread and becoming the last flavor lingering on the palate. Caramelized apples add a sweetness to the sandwich and an added flavor to the combination of cheeses.

It’s a really heavy sandwich, but Milk Truck offers a refreshing mint tea to wash down the grilled cheese. The three cheese sandwich is absolutely incredible, but you need to have a fondness for blue cheese to fully enjoy this sandwich.

On another occasion, after an early evening of drinks at Jeremy’s Ale House with friends, I decided to make my way over to Milk to taste yet another grilled cheese. This time, I ordered the classic, opting to add Caramelized Onions to the mix.

Add Caramelized Onions to this dish and you’ve got pure grilled cheese perfection. The onions are cooked down to become sweet and almost dreamy. When mixed with the aged gruyere, sweet butter and crispy bread, it’s the ultimate simple sandwich. In the case of the classic, Milk is able to transform something so simple, into a really special grilled cheese.

Using high quality ingredients, especially the bread for a variety of local shops for each sandwich, helps to create something truly special. It’s different then the majority of grilled cheese places that are all about crazy, over the top combinations. The guys and girls that work at Milk Truck are some of the nicest, coolest individuals, doing something they genuinely love and care about. Do yourself a serious favor and head downtown to Smorgasbar, help bring back an area destroyed from Sandy, and enjoy some damn good grilled cheese.

*Note: Milk Truck Grilled Cheese is located in a variety of spots throughout the city, so be sure to look out at their website for scheduled locations.